


To Capture Christmas with a Broken Lens

by leighshaw



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Depression, F/F, Post-Save Chloe Price Ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:53:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21964555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leighshaw/pseuds/leighshaw
Summary: Christmas is often Max's lowest point of the year. Will a break-up during the holiday season be the final strike to break her?
Relationships: Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Chloe Price, Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Kate Marsh
Comments: 16
Kudos: 38





	1. Christmas Eve

**Author's Note:**

> Christmas is undoubtedly the most awful part of the year for my mental health, so I copped up and banged out this idea in a few hours because it's cheaper than therapy. I had recently replayed LiS so this story came very naturally. This chapter could probably work as a standalone, but I'll most likely revisit to add a few chapters so it isn't quite as hopeless. :) I hope you enjoy and have a great Christmas if you can manage!

Either I got up in the late morning, or the early afternoon. I couldn’t see the sun because of the grey clouds and the blinds being shut. The sun and I are one in the same at this awful time of year. Christmas Eve. My bedroom was cold and the pavement outside was layered with snow. I didn’t know how long I could pay for the utilities so the heating hadn’t been on for some time. I had slept in my blue button-up cotton shirt and my jeans to save some bother. I cleaned my teeth and my gums bled quite badly, and I couldn’t remember the last time I picked up the toothbrush. My hair was unkempt but still shoulder length, so there wasn’t much maintenance. I scrutinised my reflection and was concerned that the colour of my eyes had faded. I imagined a blue tint to the whites of my eyes like a blue sock in the washing machine with white bed sheets. But there was no blue tint. Just bloodshot. The blue had fled with no trace to bury. I left the bathroom.

I manoeuvred the patches of dirty clothes that lay on the floor and some of Kate’s packed boxes to the windowsill where I had last placed my cigarettes. Frost lined the edges of the window pane like a lace pattern and I thanked Kate’s foresight regarding the double-glazed windows. Hypothermia or bankruptcy would have killed me otherwise. The carton of smokes was next to William’s old camera, which sat like a tombstone. The lens had a lightning bolt crack to the left side so I hadn’t used it in months. I remember the last picture I took and I remember how it warped and withered when I set it alight.

_“I know that Chloe and William would both… they would want this in your hands, darlin’,” said Joyce._

I had left their house that day after the funeral clutching that camera like a replacement heart, though it was moreso a consolation prize. Now, it’s broken too.

I’ve made a lousy job of it all. How long has it been since I’ve visited that woman? How many of her calls and texts and emails and letters have a ghosted? I’m too selfish. I’m too hateful. I was willing to let them all die. If Chloe hadn’t been adamant, if she hadn’t begged, if she hadn’t shown me in the heat of that storm how selfless she truly was, I would have left this town to the mercy of whatever god had stitched up that disaster. Under all that aggression and those black lungs and bared teeth, she was the best person I’ve known and the only person I’ve ever lost. Chloe saved them only for me to abandon them. Selfish. Hateful.

I thought about my fading eyes, and by association how that bastard and his bullet had torn the life from her. I picture her greying skin and parted lips as she slumped onto the bathroom floor.

Internally, I’ve debated the fairness and the justice of the universe, about the cards laid upon my table, stained with blue dye, frayed and fucked. The only real option is to accept then move on. Keep your memories pasted upon some wall like newspaper clippings.

The problem is that the weak can’t accept and they can’t move on. They can mirror the movements like trained dogs and they can trick those around them like cheap clowns. Low budget actors on Broadway. If you can’t play the game, then you dissociate, or you die.

The window was ajar and my cigarette was almost burned out. I was crying but it didn’t really matter. Chloe had made the dreadful habit look beautiful. It was part of that mysticism that only people who think too much or lose too much can emit. I couldn’t help but smile at a few of those memories. The cherished glimpses of that week, moments of which I am the sole carrier.

Under the influence of those few flashes of innocence, I didn’t even register my actions as I picked up the camera and took a shot of the town below me. The snowfall was lazy, and the streetlights had awoken in the dense darkness of the early day, lending the perfect pale complexion of the concrete a haze of dim orange like a vague reflection of a summer sunset. Through some scattered apartment windows Christmas lights beamed. Across the street was the park, where two young girls wrapped up like orphans tried and failed to build a snowman. Their laughter was the only sound carried to me. I watched as the Polaroid photograph was slowly dispensed. I plucked it out and placed it face down on the windowsill for it to set. I had no hopes for it. A haphazard shot with a cracked lens. I wanted to burn it, but something compelled me otherwise.

I closed the window and made my way down the stairs to the kitchen. Though savouring the nicotine rush, I needed some coffee. The hallway was tomb-like and a tight squeeze with the clutter of cardboard boxes. I had flipped over all the picture frames. No Christmas decorations in sight, either. Kate had brought most of the from her parent’s house.

I had come to dread this time of year, but this had been my first Christmas living with Kate, who held the tradition with endearing reverence, and a degree of childlike joy. Fond memories shared with her sisters and parents where often cited, where she would often press for my input. The only stories I had were strung together by a thread now unravelled, and they served to remind me of nothing other than the emotions that now allude me. Wonder, hope, innocence. Songs of the past.

I started a pot of coffee and jammed my hands into my pockets for some heat. It had brewed, and I considered heading upstairs to check the picture before there was a few knocks at the door. I checked the clock. Of course, she was perfectly on time.

I opened the door to Kate. The woman was swaddled like a child in thick coats and scarves with her skin like marble and her eyes like a siren’s call. My portfolio was overflowing with shots of her, but the Kate's essence was an impossible one to capture justly.

The devastation on her face overshadowed it all, though. It had haunted me in a past life and I had wished I would never see her wear it again.

She forced a tearful smile. “Hi, Max.”

“Kate.”

We stood in silence as a looked in her eyes. I was desperate for some contact. Her arms, her lips, some warmth. Soon I snapped out of it.

“Please come in, Kate.” I stood aside and she forced another smile before drifting past me. Entering the hallway, I watched as she scanned the lifeless walls with their over-turned pictures and wasted memories. I heard a quiet sob as I stood behind her. I wanted more to hold her as some tears pricked my eyes, but that would have only made it worse.

“Would you like some tea? Coffee just finished brewing, too.”

“Coffee sounds nice. Thank you.” Her voice was quiet and she didn’t turn to look at me, so I walked to the kitchen and grabbed her our respective mugs. I took the pot and filled my mug to the brim before filling Kate’s three quarters of the way before adding a dash of milk and some sweetener. Kate had appeared behind me and took her usual place at the table without a sound. I placed the mug in front of her before sitting down myself.

The silence at table was like the weight of the ocean. I sipped the coffee and relished in the strong flavour. It gave my brain some stimulation. I was terrified of speaking, because I suspected that I’d burst into tears, which didn’t seem fair on Kate. Maybe she was feeling the same way.

“I’m sorry if it’s too strong. I put a lot of sweetener in.”

“It tastes nice, like always.”

I kept sipping. At least I wasn’t crying.

“Is your dad out there?” I asked.

“He’ll bring the truck ‘round in twenty minutes or so. I wanted some time to speak with you first. Alone, I mean.”

“Yeah. Fair enough.”

She took a drink from her mug, then perked up a little as if she just realised something.

“Why is it so cold Max?

“I’m trying to save some dough.”

Her eyes welled up. “This isn’t healthy, Max. You’ll get ill.”

“Maybe,” I said then took another drink. “You’ll want to take that mug, too. I'll clean it out before you leave.”

“Max…”

“I don’t want to be an asshole, Kate,” I said in a heated voice, “But why exactly did you want to talk alone? What is there left to say? Some parting words of holiness? Or did you come to twist the knife?” Is this how I wanted things to end between us? 

If I wasn’t already certain I had crossed the line, the powder was lit, and Kate collapsed into sobs. I felt sick and cruel. I was going to keep to my no contact rule, and any apologies or soothing words would just seem ingenuine, so I just sat in silence sipping my coffee and quietly weeping.

“You really hate me, don’t you?”

I swallowed. “I could never hate you Kate. No matter what.” That just caused her to cry harder, so I was truly at a lost.

I finished my coffee with a final gulp so I got up to pour more and grab some tissues. When I had sat down, my dearest companion had calmed down to a few sniffles. I handed her some tissues and kept a few for myself.

“Thank you, Max.”

“No problem, hun.” I winced at the word. “Sorry. That’ll take some unlearning.”

She managed a little laugh at that and it just made my chest hurt more.

“You’re just heading back home, then?”

“Yeah. I’ll keep an eye out for somewhere next semester, but in the meantime the family is pretty happy to welcome me back.”

“Even your mom?”

“In some twisted way. She’s still mad I moved out to begin with, and she warned me it wouldn’t work to begin with.” _What would that Bible-bashing bitch know?_ I thought. “She’s got that whole ‘I told you so’ attitude, but I think she’s glad to have me back under the wing. Even if it is for the wrong reasons.” After a few moments of silence, she asked “What about you?”

“I’ll stick around here as long as I can afford to do so. After that… God only knows. Still haven’t spoken to my parents in some time. That bridge is still burning spectacularly.”

“What about tomorrow?” she asked. I knew that was coming.

“What about it?”

“Come on, Max. You can’t spend Christmas day in here alone. That isn’t right.”

“I don’t care. There’s nowhere else I could even show my face anyway.”

“What about Joy-”

“Don’t, Kate. Just don’t.”

We got quiet again so she started drinking her coffee with a little more frequency. Soon she had finished and I offered to pour another and she accepted. It was rare for her to over-caffeinate, but I remembered all the times that she admitted I had perfected the air of making her coffee. This would be the last time in the foreseeable future that she would be tasting it. I set the mug in front of her.

“You could spend it with my family,” she piped up.

I shook my head and chuckled in a mean manner. “C’mon now. Kate. You seriously just suggested that?”

Her lip quivered. “We’re still friends, Max. You’re my best friend.”

I willed myself not to cry or cuss. “It isn’t a good idea right now, and you know it.”

“I just… I don’t want you alone on Christmas.”

“Then why the fuck did you dump me?”

Fresh tears, but her face was alight with a certain anger now.

“You don’t get to speak to me like this, Max. I tried with you, tried with all my heart."

“You-”

“No! I’m speaking.” She was clutching the mug and she was leaning forward. “I don’t blame you for your trauma, Max. I know it’s been an awful few years. You know that I’ve lived the way you’re living now. I’ve been through that same Hell, and after all you did for me, I never stopped trying to get better. No matter how _shit_ I felt, I went to therapy, I went to church, I held on.”

By this time I was staring and my coffee in shame, and her voice was so raw it was burning me. Her desperation, her frustration made the air feel like chains.

“There is nothing I want more than to see you happy. I pray for it every night. Every night…” she swallowed and dabbed at her eyes with the tissues. “But that change needs to start with you. I’ve always been here for you, and I always pushed for you to get some serious help for your situation, but you refuse to take that first step.”

Her phone buzzed, then she got up and walked to the sink and poured out the rest of her coffee. “My dad,” she said, checking the message. “I’m sorry, Max. I love you, but I won’t let that ruin me. It isn’t right.”

“Most of your boxes are in the hallway. There’s a couple in the bedroom. Leave the keys in the mailbox.”

I refused to look at her. “Goodbye, Max. Please stay in touch.” With a few moments of quiet, she left from the front door, and I went to find somewhere to disappear while her dad grabbed the boxes.


	2. Destroying the Bathroom

I lay on the bathroom floor, in the fetal position, with my knuckles painted with cuts and dried blood and drying blood. It was Christmas Day.

When I was with Kate or with Chloe, in my happiest disposition, I experienced overflows of emotion that I’ve never learned to cope with internally. There were moments of affection where my heart was struck by intense spasms, and my chest was sprained like an elastic band at its limit. Any simple thing could set me off, like one Chloe’s nicknames for me or how Kate would smile when she said she loved me. On those occasions, I could only calm myself down by doing something physical. Transferring that energy from my bones to the world around me. A deep and shameless kiss for Kate, a crushing hug for Chloe. It helped to have control over my surroundings. It gave me confidence.

All those cardboard boxes were gone. The van has screeched across the frozen streets.

A very different but much the same sensation had crept in. My brain was spewing liquid charcoal. The skin of my face, I could feel it blacken. I had to check the bathroom mirror but I didn’t see any melting flesh, just more tears, and the same lifeless eyes.

My arm uncoiled, snapping like a viper. I didn’t realize I had done it until a desperate flurry of swings had bludgeoned the mirror like a bottle thrown at a wall. My knuckles were cracked and bleeding. Glass splinters had freckled cuts over my cheeks and my lips. Then the lid of the toilet had been cracked against the door and a shard of marble had cut my eyebrow. The medicine cabinet next, torn from the wall and smashed over the side of the bath with five or six rapid over-the-shoulder swings. Chunks of wood littered the floor. I kicked in the side of the tub and the snapping and spraying of the pipes beneath were like mice squeaking because all I could hear was my rapid ragged breathing.

A petrifying scream pierced my ears and my throat felt as if an iron claw was wrapped around it.

I collapsed onto the floor. My eyelids were like lead; I lacked the power repel the creeping unconsciousness. My chest was anchored to the floor, and I decided wouldn’t get up even if I could, because this was it. I would lie here and life would leave me. There was no real point to it all. I wouldn’t survive the landlord's wrath anyways.

But my mind’s eye was open and I saw Kate. I saw a dove with wings spread against the sun. I remembered her wearing that Sunday best outfit for Christmas last year. How warm and how patient and beautiful she was.

Then I imagined her on a roof. Tears and rain. A world collapsing like a smoke-stained lung. Shame as lethal as a gas leak in the air.

Could she handle someone finding me here, frozen and lifeless? Could she handle finding me here herself?

_Get up, you selfish cunt._

I can’t. I feel like I’m dying.

_You haven’t eaten in days. You’ve probably caught hypothermia, too. Stupidity and selfishness has killed you. Think about the life you’ve gone and wasted._

Is there any point? There never is. If only there was someone to say goodbye to.

I just hoped that wherever awaited me was warm, or at least, somewhere I couldn’t feel cold.


	3. Happenings

My death didn’t last long.

The surface I lay on was stiff and my limbs buzzed with numbness. My body was weightless. A lone beeping sound hung in the air like a church bell. I kept my eyes closed and tried to imagine I was drifting across the surface of the cool blue ocean enjoying the simplicity and the serenity of just existing.

Some distant part of me was thankful that I hadn’t expired on my bathroom floor. That being said, I didn’t want to open my eyes. I was exhausted.

“Max?”

I couldn’t misplace that Southern drawl. It brought forth the sizzling scent of pan-fried bacon and greasy eggs in a sunlit diner booth. The smell of freshly poured coffee in the room fastened me to the memory and I could almost inhabit it entirely.

I opened my eyes to Joyce, dirty blonde hair in a haphazard bun and dark bags under her puffy red eyes. She was smiling, though. Graceful with life’s grievances, as always. The world had taken more from her than it had ever given, but she was unbroken. I admired her. I loved her more than my own mother.

This was the first time I had seen her in months, in what looked to be a dimly lit hospital room, with an IV linked to my left arm and a lot of things I should say and should have already said.

“Hiya, Joyce.”

She placed the Styrofoam cup filled with coffee on the tray beside my bed.

“I’d give you a hug, darlin', but I reckon you’re feeling fragile,” Joyce said.

“I think I can handle a hug.”

Joyce stretched over from the small chair and cautiously brought her arms around me body. I sat up and tried to reciprocate. My right hand had been covered with a cast and the left with a few bandages. I may as well have been violating her, wasting her body heat on me and crying for me. But she just squeezed me and sobbed. 

“God, I thought we lost you, Max.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say.

She pulled away after a few moments then rested her hand on my knee. 

“Is it still Christmas day?” I asked.

“Yeah.” Glancing up she read the clock above the door. “Seven-thirty.”

Snow was still drifting in the early dark outside. Christmas, with the smell of roasted meat and decorations like fireworks, was winding down and curling up like a bear for its annual slumber. The joyful spirits and chiming laughter that can only exist in a child’s mind, I had cast it all off for my cynical paradise. For a humid hotel of the ill and lonely and the woman who I had dragged down with me.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I said, so quiet it was almost to myself. “Stuck in here on Christmas.”

“It’s just another day, honey. I’m just happy you’re safe,” Joyce responded, sounding so genuine that it made me sick.

“How did I end up here?”

“Well, I got a phone call last night, just about the end of the late shift.”

“Kate?”

“Yeah. Sounding pretty inconsolable, too.”

“How’d does she have your number?”

“We _have_ spoken before. She would always volunteer during the food drives at the diner, and even gave her condolences at the funeral. It was very sweet of her. Anyway, when you and I, uh, fell outta touch, she would give me little updates. How you and her were doin', you know?”

“Only good things?”

“Be fair, Max. She’s a one of a kind woman, and it’s easy to tell she thinks the world of you. It helped me sleep at night, knowing that she was looking out for you.”

_And look at what I’ve done._

“Anyway, last night, she was worried about leaving you on such bad terms. Said you’d be spending Christmas alone.”

“It’s like you said, just another day.”

“You know that isn’t true in your case, honey. That’s why David and I decided to invite you over for dinner, just to take your mind off it all. Even if it was only for a few hours.” Joyce turned her head away from me, and I could see the glint of oncoming tears. She wiped them away quickly, just as Chloe used to, just like I had learned to.

“I tried calling, to give some heads up,” Joyce said. “No answer, of course. We decided if we showed up in person, you’d have to. It didn’t feel right, forcing you to see us considering how clear you made it that you had no interest.”

I could feel my own eyes water. Joyce thought I didn’t want to see her, and why wouldn’t she? The true reason was raw and wild. I couldn’t string together the thoughts to articulate it, much less say them. So, silence.

“I knocked on the door, and nothing.” she continued. “I figured I might just have to irritate you into answering the door, even if it was just to tell us to go to Hell. I kept knocking and knocking, and then I was yelling. David went around back to check all the windows… nothing. I just couldn’t stand it, and David, God bless him, he was terrified. Just busted down the goddamn door.”

“More property damage to calculate,” I said.

“The first thing David noticed was the water leaking through the ceiling. I thought you might have ran a bath and-”

Her voice broke off and she openly wept.

“I collapsed by the stairs. I couldn’t bare the idea of seeing you up there. God forgive me, but I just let David rush up. I couldn’t move. Then he just yelled from upstairs that you where alive, and to start the car. Seeing him running to the car, with you in his arms, it seemed like you were wasting away before my eyes.

“The doctors told us exhaustion had gotten the better of you, that you weren’t eating or sleeping properly, and there was a risk of hypothermia. Apart from some minor cuts and the fractured knuckle, though, you'd be alright, they'd have you fixed up.”

Fix me up, like the broken clock on my bedroom wall. I could eat like royalty and sleep like a lion for the rest of my life and I wouldn’t be _fixed_. But that wasn’t Joyce’s fault.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “It sounds fucking stupid, but I don’t know what else to say.”

Joyce looked up. I’m sure the shock of it all was crippling, but she forced the grief from her face for a matchstick smile and placed her hand back on my knee.

“I know, Max. I am too.”

“How can you stomach that, Joyce? Apologizing to _me?_ Give me ten lifetimes and I still could never make this up to you.”

“You don’t owe me anything, honey.”

“You’re wrong.”

Joyce got quiet, but kept her hand on my knee. The beeping took the stage once more. A rather irritating reminder of the rather irritating fact my heart was still pumping thin blood around a pale body.

I caught myself, though. My destructive thoughts led me here. They were the reason Joyce had tears dripping down her cheeks in a hospital room on Christmas day. They were the reason Kate chose to jump ship.

But for some hateful reason, the thought wasn’t all that compelling to me, even though I knew it should have been.

I turned my head from the wall to the cup of coffee on the floor.

“Are you gonna drink that?”

Joyce chuckled as she lifted it up. “I doubt caffeine is an awfully good medicine, but far be it from me to deny you..”

The cup only lasted a few seconds. I was feeling withdrawal symptoms.

“As good as the Two Whales brew?”

“Never,” I said.

I couldn’t even remember the last time I had eaten in the diner, but right now there was nothing I desired more.

“Where’s David?” I asked.

“He just left half an hour ago, to see some army buddy of his that’s taken up house repairs and renovation.”

“Wait, for my house?”

“Well, he did kick the door down. Told me that you left the bathroom in quite the state, too.”

“I can’t let you pay for… oh fuck.”

“Hmm?”

“I don’t even have fucking health insurance. You aren’t covering my expenses, are you?”

“That don’t matter.”

“Oh God, Joyce. You’re insane. You’re feeding a parasite.”

Joyce’s face tightened. “You are family, Max. When you have the means to help your family, that’s what you do, and you never think twice.”

“So, you’re drowning in disposable income then?”

Joyce shifted in her seat. “I wouldn’t say drowning, but money those old money issues have become a thing of the past.”

“Oh yeah?”

“After what happened with that Prescott boy and Jefferson, you'd think Blackwell was Alcatraz. Cameras on every corner, metal detectors, extra security personnel. Having experience with all that, David’s bagged quite the promotion, and Two Whales is booming, so we make more money that two middle aged squares could ever need.”

After what happened— after what happened. That’s all the trauma becomes for the survivors. Happenings. 

“Well, something good had to come of all this,” I said. “That’s the way thing’s are supposed to work, right?”

“Yes, that’s right, honey.”

I swallowed and then stayed quiet for a few minutes, before asking Joyce if she could get me out of that place. 


	4. The Self-Exiled Daughter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the kudos, bookmarks, subscriptions, etc. you've given over the past few days as I attempt to revitalize this story. 
> 
> I'd like to know if the shorter chapter format works for you, if you folks would like to share your thoughts on it. At the moment, they're less like story chapters than they are short vignettes of particular moments as the story unfolds, which I think is thematically suitable. If anyone wants to see a longer chapter(s) instead, please let me know.
> 
> P.S. https://life-is-strange.fandom.com/wiki/Madsen_Household might be helpful to anyone who thinks I've fucked up the scene geometry or whatever.

“I expected different.”

“Huh?”

“With all this fresh money you have I thought you’d have moved somewhere— new house, new town, new state even. But it’s just like it was.”

“Well, David gave her a new lick of paint.”

Joyce was right. When my parents and I attended Chloe’s wake, the blue paint of the walls was receding upwards from the sun-bleached white of the wood of the underneath. Now, snowflakes slackened against a renewed coat of colour and snow rested evenly on the well-trimmed grass of the small front yard.

“It’s even better inside,” said Joyce with a smile before cutting the engine of the silver Ford Focus— a humble and reserved second hand machine Joyce told me she bought for work.

I had no intention to come there once discharged from the hospital, as being in Kate and I’s house alone was becoming a habit of mine. Yet, after what I had put Joyce through since this morning, I complied with her Christmas dinner wishes. David was also still fixing up the mess I made this morning, so I wouldn’t get peace either way.

I unbuckled my seatbelt just as Joyce did but I couldn’t bring myself to open the car door. It was as if the cold had frozen my hand to the handle. I needed a Joyce’s hand on my knee caused me to jolt.

“I know how you’re feeling,” she said. “It might as well be a graveyard, or someplace worse. But it gets easier, like jumping into cold water. Just focus on your breathing, darlin’.”

I glanced at her pale eyes then back to the house through the window, then lay my hand on Joyce’s, then said “Okay,” but more than anything else I needed a cigarette. Our hands were linked from the point she helped me out of the car until we reached the front door and she had to unlock it.

Once the front door was open, it had been shut again, and the hallway was black— as black as the hallways in your nightmares, or an abandoned coal mine, or the hollow crater-bowels of the ocean. It was too black for me to think and so black it was suffocating me.

Then Joyce flicked the light switch, and soft orange light burned away the black, and I could breathe in, then out again, and all the Christmas smells flowed through my throat— candy stick Yankee candles, the pine smell exhaled from the tree, a turkey cooking. The light also awakened the pictures lining the walls— pictures I remembered, the banisters I remembered. I turned to Joyce.

“We should have stopped for cigarettes,” I said to her. Joyce looked away and shook her head slightly, but seemingly didn’t want to say anything disparaging, like my mom might have done.

“I’ll call David,” she said before forcefully smiling and patting my left shoulder with her right hand then, wrapping her left around my bicep. “Come on— make yourself at home.” Joyce lightly pulled me along with her down the hallway to the living room. Breathe in, breathe out.

I was whisked onto the forest green sofa which was opposite the television. As far as I could tell, it was new, with two accompanying armchairs of the same style. I traced circles with my hand on the spotless velvet cushions, closing my eyes, trying to savour the pleasant stimulation. Joyce pulled the curtains to the screen door open and the backyard unfolded in front of me, cloaked in snow. The swings were still there, and if I wasn’t mistaken, the frame had been repainted, along with the fence posts. Joyce turned a few lamps on and walked into the kitchen where the prepared pieces of Christmas were spread across the countertop.

My reflection rested in the glossy black screen, and by some strange trick my mind was playing on me, or something, that reflection seemed so young—demure and unlearned.

“Debby, my next-door neighbour—I don’t know if you remember Debby—she has a key for emergencies,” Joyce said from the kitchen. “She kept an eye on the food, so it’ll be finished before you know it. I’m sure you’re hungry.”

I turned from the T.V. and saw that the oven was active on low heat. “Yeah, I guess. Are you sure about this though? Having me here for dinner seems like trouble,” I said.

Joyce walked into the living room as the sounds of plates and cutlery ceased. “What? Trouble?”

“Hassle, I mean,” I said, scratching my cheek.

“Nonsense. I invited you, didn’t I? It’s our pleasure to have you with us, Max. Don’t you ever think any different,” Joyce said, her voice warm and almost too caring for me to handle at that moment. 

I nodded and attempted a smile, but God knows what it seemed like I was trying to communicate. Joyce looked satisfied, though, or as satisfied she could ever be with me. My eyes went back to the T.V. as memories pooled within me, and I spoke before Joyce’s reflection returned to the kitchen. 

“I- I do remember Debby,” I said, and her plump body and pink blouse and blonde hair formed in my mind’s eye. “She worked down at that fruit market, didn’t she? Every time she came home from a shift she’d bring slices of fresh watermelon for me and Chloe, when the season was right for it. We would sit out on those swings together in the sun, eating them. We’d make a total goddamn mess with them. Chloe always called them ‘hard to eat’ and I’d laugh my ass off at how weird that sounded.”

I was looking out at those very swings jingling in the December winds, when I heard Joyce quietly say “It’s nice you can remember things like that. Sometimes I feel like I don’t remember the pretty moments so well.”

“I thought it was like that with everyone,” I said, although I didn’t really believe it.


End file.
